How to Plan a Vegetable Garden: Design Your Best Garden Layout (2024)

, written by Wayne Trevor How to Plan a Vegetable Garden: Design Your Best Garden Layout (1)

How to Plan a Vegetable Garden: Design Your Best Garden Layout (2)

Many of us will have drawn out our gardens, if only a rough sketch, to work out what space we have and to help us to select the plants we’ll grow. There are a few essential questions to ask to make sure that your time spent garden planning is as productive as possible.

How many plants can I grow in the space I have?

One of the most common mistakes gardeners make is trying to cram too many crops into their gardens, which results in overcrowding and poor harvests as the plants get bigger and compete for the best nutrients.

What is the best layout for my plants?

It’s usually necessary to rearrange the plants on a plan until you achieve the perfect layout. Make sure that you consider both the size of plants when they are fully grown, and their growing needs; for instance, sprawling squash should be at the edge of vegetable beds so they don’t smother other crops, leafy crops like summer lettuce can benefit from the shade cast by taller plants, and sweet corn should always be grown in blocks rather than a single row so that they can wind-pollinate properly.

What do I need to buy or order?

Carefully planning seed and garden supply orders is essential, so you can get growing as soon as the weather is right.

How to Plan a Vegetable Garden: Design Your Best Garden Layout (3)

When should I plant?

It’s important to draw up a schedule of the best times for planting each crop in your local area. For best results some crops such as tomatoes and peppers should be started off under cover or indoors several weeks before your last frost. Other crops such as beans and squash can’t be sown until outside temperatures are reliably warm.

What might go wrong?

Consider what might cause problems. For example, big blocks of single crops can easily be attacked by pests such as aphids so don’t forget to include flowering plants to attract beneficial insects in your plan, or a sudden hot spell might cripple young tender plants unless you have planned adequate irrigation or shade.

All this planning can be done using pen and paper, but this can be time-consuming.It becomes increasingly complicated the more plants you grow, particularly if you’re keeping track of several years of plans for crop rotation purposes.

Using the Garden Planner

The Garden Planner has been designed to solve many of the headaches of growing a successful garden by helping you to produce the perfect plan of what you’ll grow where and when.

The first step is to add all of the key items that you have or plan to include in your garden. The Garden Planner has lots of ready-designed garden objects such as sheds, fences and compost bins, which can be dropped straight into your plan. Many of them, such as raised beds and glasshouses can be adjusted to fit your space. For odd-shaped gardens you can mark boundaries with lines or fences, which can be curved if necessary.

To add plants, just click on the plant to pick it up, click on your plan where you want to place it, and then hold down your mouse button and drag to draw a whole row or block. As you add vegetables the space they require is clearly shown by the colored area around each plant, and the tooltip displays how many plants will fit into the area.

Click on the ‘i’ button next to the plant in the selection bar for growing information. You can also use the Filter button to the left of the selection bar to only crops that suit your requirements.

You can plan traditional rows or blocks, or if you’re using the intensive Square Foot Gardening method, the Garden Planner has a dedicated SFG mode.

How to Plan a Vegetable Garden: Design Your Best Garden Layout (4)

More Useful Garden Planner Features

The Garden Planner has many other powerful features that make it easy to get more from your garden.

  • Personalized sowing, planting and harvesting times. The Garden Planner adapts to your location by looking up the average frost dates for your area in our database of over 5000 weather stations and using this to produce a personalized Plant List, showing how many of each plant you require and when to sow, plant and harvest them in your location. Twice a month the Garden Planner sends email reminders of what can be sown or planted now from your garden plans to help you keep on track and not miss key planting dates.
  • Succession planting. Organize which crops will follow on from others using the succession planting feature, setting in-ground dates for your plants and viewing them month by month to show where gaps will appear.
  • Crop rotation. Each plant has a crop family color so you can easily identify it. The Garden Planner warns you about where you should avoid placing each vegetable based on what was in that area in previous years, helping to reduce the likelihood of soil-borne pests and diseases surviving from one year to the next.
  • Irrigation. Use the Filter drop-down box to select Irrigation, and then use the various components to create your system.The Parts List will create an easy to use shopping list of the items you will need, based on your design. Other garden objects from your plan will also be listed here.
  • Season extenders. Glasshouses, cold frames and row covers can all be used to extend the season. The Garden Planner automatically updates the sow, plant and harvest times for your vegetables when you add these protective structures to your plan.

Planning your garden will ensure you’ve got all the information you need to start your plants at the best time and give them the best chance of survival through the growing season. With good planning, some hard work, and a little help from Mother Nature, you can look forward to harvesting a bumper crop.

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How to Plan a Vegetable Garden: Design Your Best Garden Layout (2024)

FAQs

What is the best way to layout a vegetable garden? ›

As a general rule, put tall veggies toward the back of the bed, mid-sized ones in the middle, and smaller plants in the front or as a border. Consider adding pollinator plants to attract beneficial insects that can not only help you get a better harvest, but will also prey on garden pests.

What is the most common garden layout for growing vegetables? ›

Rows. The most basic garden plan consists of a design with straight, long rows running north to south orientation. A north to south direction will ensure that the garden gets the best sun exposure and air circulation. A garden that runs east to west tends to get too shaded from the crops growing in the preceding row.

What vegetables should not be planted next to each other? ›

14 Vegetables You Should Never Plant Together—Gardening Experts Explain Why
  • 01 of 14. Beans and Onions. ...
  • 02 of 14. Tomatoes and Potatoes. ...
  • 03 of 14. Corn and Tomatoes. ...
  • 04 of 14. Tomatoes and Brassicas. ...
  • 05 of 14. Cucumber and Squash. ...
  • 06 of 14. Lettuce and Celery. ...
  • 07 of 14. Fennel and Tomatoes. ...
  • 08 of 14. Peppers and Cabbage.
Jan 16, 2024

What should you not plant next to tomatoes? ›

Companion Plants To Avoid Growing Near Tomatoes
  • Brassicas. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi can stunt the growth of your tomato plant because they out-compete them for the same nutrients. ...
  • Corn. ...
  • Fennel. ...
  • Dill. ...
  • Potatoes. ...
  • Eggplant. ...
  • Walnuts.
Feb 1, 2022

Can I plant tomatoes and cucumbers next to each other? ›

According to garden experts, cucumbers and tomatoes share similar growing habits and grow well when planted in proximity. Since both are vining plants, space them at least 18 inches apart and install stakes to train them vertically as they grow.

What is the most efficient garden layout? ›

Square foot gardening is an efficient and space-saving technique that involves dividing your garden into small, manageable squares. Each square is typically one foot by one foot and is planted with a specific number of plants depending on their size.

What veggies to plant next to each other? ›

Which Vegetables Grow Well Together?
VegetableCompanion PlantDon't Plant Together
OnionsBeets, carrots, Swiss chard, lettuce, peppersAll beans and peas
PeasBeans, carrots, corn, cucumbers, radish, turnipGarlic, onions
PotatoesBeans, corn, peasTomatoes
SquashCorn, melons, pumpkinsNone
11 more rows
Jun 26, 2021

What plants grow well together chart? ›

Vegetables and Herbs Companion Planting Chart
PlantGood Together
PotatoBush Bean, Cabbage, Carrot, Corn, Horseradish, Onion, Parsnip, Peas
RadishBeet, Bush Beans, Pole Beans, Carrots, Cucumber, Lettuce, Parsnip, Peas, Spinach, Squash
SpinachCelery, Corn, Eggplant, Cauliflower
SquashCorn, Onion, Radish
15 more rows

What is the best side of the house for a vegetable garden? ›

Sun and water

Plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into food through the process of photosynthesis. When selecting a site, find an area that gets at least eight to 10 hours of full sun per day. West or south-facing sites are preferred.

How far apart should vegetable garden rows be? ›

Most experienced gardeners like to keep wide rows to no more than 3 feet wide to ensure that you can easily reach the center of the row from both sides. Keep at least 18 inches of space between the wide rows to provide access; 2 to 3 feet is even better.

Can I plant tomatoes and peppers together? ›

Tomatoes. Although it's usually recommended to not plant tomatoes and peppers right after each other in the same bed every year, they can be grown together in the same garden bed (and then rotated to another bed next season).

What not to plant next to cucumbers? ›

Both potatoes and cucumbers are susceptible to the same diseases, such as blight, and can spread the disease to each other. Tomatoes: Tomatoes are not a good companion plant for cucumbers because they can attract pests like aphids and whiteflies that can also attack cucumber plants.

What not to plant with peppers? ›

Brassicas: Almanacs and home gardeners recommend avoiding planting brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, cauliflower) near peppers because they require different soil acidity levels and can deter pepper plant growth.

What is the best orientation for growing vegetables? ›

The north-south orientation allows the sun to penetrate the garden by shining down the rows. This is especially helpful during the winter gardening period when the sun stays relatively low in the sky.

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